Create a Career Path

Planning and professional development to help get you where you want to go.

By Erin Murphy, Contributing Editor

Do you see yourself in a job or a career? If you answered "career," then chances are you hope to move into roles with greater challenges and increased pay. Luckily, practices typically want their staff members to move up rather than move out, and that means many will help plan and pay for the professional development of their employees. Even if your practice doesn't offer these growth opportunities, there are still ways you can develop and broaden your skills to make yourself more marketable to other practices.

"We have both 'job' and 'career' employees," says Carol Wittmer COE, Administrator of the Eye Center of Northern Colorado in Fort Collins. "Some people love a particular role and don't want to leave it, but if career-minded people are good employees and selfmotivated learners, then we want them to move up as much as they do."

Move On Up

To know what kinds of opportunities are available to you in your current practice, it's best to ask around. How long have people worked there? Did they start in their current role or work their way up? Does it seem like good jobs open up periodically, or is the staffing largely set in stone?

"Nearly 1 in 4 members of our staff started out as paid high school or college interns," says Suzi Martin, PhD, Practice Administrator at Tyson Eye of Cape Coral Eye Center in Southwest Florida. "Often the biggest hurdle with entry-level employees is their own self-doubt. If they can believe in themselves, then we can help them have the careers they want. It's exciting to me."

Smart managers are pleased to give career help to good employees. After all, when they hired you instead of other candidates, they were choosing the character traits they want in an employee. Skills are an easy thing to change, by comparison.

"We hired an exceptional waitress we met at lunch, and she's an outstanding employee. She knows customer service and she's a motivated person. We can teach skills, but we can't teach personality," explains Carol. "An untrained entry-level front desk employee might move up into something like surgery scheduling, which offers better pay and more responsibility."

Create a Career Path

The way to get the job you want is to plan for the future. Research the training that's required for the career path you want, and ask people you know who have those jobs about their experiences. If your manager supports professional development, then discuss your goals and how the practice can help you reach them. If you're not sure which job you'd like best, it might help to take a closer look.

"A few months ago, we decided to have our front desk staff shadow technicians and other staff in the workup and exam rooms. It helped them be better upfront staff, plus it piqued their interest in other jobs in the practice," says Donna Diehl, LPN, COA, Patient Care Coordinator at Gailey Eye Clinic in Bloomington, Ill. "After shadowing technicians, two members of our front desk staff are very interested in becoming ophthalmic assistants and will most likely transfer and begin training to earn that role."

Written goals are a way to make sure you and your manager are on the same page when it comes to your professional development. "In an annual goal-setting session with each employee, we map out a career plan," says Dr. Martin. "We want to know where employees want to go so we can lay out the training, experience and certification they need to reach their goals. It's an ongoing process, from hiring to when someone leaves."

Consider Certification

Like your existing education, certification is a concrete career asset that goes with you from position to position, practice to practice. Some practices even tie certification to a pay increase.

"We have a grid of pay raises for every level of certification," Dr. Martin says. "There's no mystery. Employees clearly see how they can earn the pay increases they want."

If you're applying at a new practice, certification clearly and objectively demonstrates your abilities. And those letters after your name are pretty desirable.

"We always like to be loyal to our staff and grow from within, but when we recently had a COA and COT who were moving to the area fall into our laps, we snatched them up," says Donna. "It's a bonus to find people like that who can jump in after just about 2 weeks of training."

If these advantages sound good to you, you might want to work toward one of these common staff certifications:

• Certified Patient Service Specialist (CPPS): This credential from BSM Consulting is for nonclinical employees such as front desk staff.

• Certified ophthalmic assistant (COA): This is the basic level of certification from the Joint Commission on Allied Health Personnel in Ophthalmology (JCAHPO). It demonstrates that a staff member is trained to perform certain tasks, such as taking patient histories or instilling eye drops.¹

• Certified ophthalmic technician (COT), certified ophthalmic medical technologist (COMT) and ophthalmic surgical assistant (OSA): COT and COMT are the second and third levels of JCAHPO certification, respectively, while the OSA certification is specifically for surgery-related functions.²

• American Board of Opticianry (ABO) certification and national contact lens exam (NCLE): Like the technician certifications, these certifications may be job requirements for opticians.

• Certified professional coder (CPC): Granted by the American Academy of Professional Coders (AAPC), this credential demonstrates proficiency in billing and coding.

• Certified clinical research coordinator (CCRC): This credential from the Association of Clinical Research Professionals is for staff member who work for practices that participate in clinical studies.

Find Help

You may pursue certification on your own, or your employer may offer financial assistance and guidance.

You will spend time learning about the requirements through options ranging from study books to classes and conferences. Testing arrangements vary by certification. Ask if your employer will pay for some or all of the costs.

"All of our employees get up to $750 per year for continuing education in areas relevant to our eye center," Carol says. "We host a full-day, credit-approved CE event for technicians in our region, and we host a number of lunch-and-learn sessions. We also encourage staff to attend regional meetings and take free online classes."

Professional development and tuition reimbursement programs often have a payback period. You don't have to return the money, but you do have to stay at the practice that helped you for a certain period of time.

"We pay the full cost of our staff's education. They only have to repay a prorated portion of the cost if they leave us less than 1 year after completion," Dr. Martin says. "That rarely happens. Our staff members are all on a career path - by the time they finish one certification, they're usually working on the next one!"

Start Now

If you want to put your career on the right path, don't put it off. Start planning now. Whether you embark on the road to certification or simply use your existing CE requirements to steer things in the right direction, getting an early start will ensure that you're ready to seize any opportunities that arise.

Managers like Carol and her colleagues are always on the lookout for standout staffers. "We don't want to move people up because they tell us they're bored," she says. "We're looking for people who are outstanding employees in their current jobs. We help people get their certifications, but in the end we want to advance people who show initiative both on the job and in their educational goals."

References

1. "Certification/Recertification: COA Certification," JCAHPO. Accessed October 2, 2013. (http://www.jcahpo.org/certification/coa.aspx)

2. "Certification/Recertification: general Information," JCAHPO. Accessed October 2, 2013. (http://www.jcahpo.org/certification/)